Frank Thiel

Frank Thiel returns to Galeria Helga de Alvear to present his new body of work. Born in 1966 in Kleinmachnow near Berlin, in the former GDR, Thiel moved to West Berlin in 1985, where he studied photography.

Since the mid 90s his works has portrayed and documented the changes which have occurred in the city of Berlin since the fall of the wall. The large urban operation that were meant to bring closure to the physical scars of the division, but also by creating a new model of the city, became his main focus and found in large scale format the ideal way for representation of the subjects.

During this exploration Thiel fixes his gaze on more specific and particular topics with his series on facades or on buildings under construction. In these images his works gain an abstract nature and associations of certain moments in Art history at the same time his sights focuses on precise elements moving away from the macro vision, the overview of the city, to the micro vision, the details. This way his last series were showing pieces of walls, peeling paint and fragments.

For the new series of works showing at Galería Helga de Alvear, Frank Thiel continues his exploration of architecture as a reflection and, at the same time, the result of the passing of time and of memory.

His starting point are the curtains that were hanging in abandoned industrial and governmental buildings in East Berlin for over 15 years. On one hand they are the remains of those whom once worked there and, on the other, they are witness of times passed. The designs are easily recognisable as 60s and 70s East German industrial textile prints, becoming a witness of another time. They suggest musings on the passing of time, but also a vision of the present from a contemporary perspective.

Thiel’s working method eschews literality, subjecting objects to a process distancing them from realism: the curtains are not photographed in situ but are removed to the artist’s studio. There, they are arranged in a very specific order until the patterns create the forms Thiel is looking for. Thus, underscoring the view of the curtains as an abstract drawing, charging them with new references while at once freeing them from the anecdotal and the purely narrative. In turn empowering them with a wider universality. Nevertheless, the photographs are always taken with natural light so as to maintain the original atmosphere.

Frank Thiel has exhibited his work at the Centre National de la Photographie, Paris; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; and Portland Art Museum, USA.

Frank Thiel